Transcript: Episode 187
187. Footprints
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
I want to tell you a story. There's some mention of how my life was at the time. But I'm not gonna talk about the hard stuff in depth at all, so bear with me. But if you're not in a good place to talk about it at all, just don't listen to this one. And always keep yourself safe. But I want to share this bit to explain something. So I feel like it serves a purpose.
Growing up things were hard, obviously. But what we've learned about relational trauma has given me new understandings to some things. In high school, we were in foster care again, before we ran away. We had not been given food and the school report ed it. And we'd been beaten, and the score reported that. So things were really difficult. And at the time, we were going to a private school, a church school that was next door to the church. But our class went across to the church for choir. And the choir teacher was a safe lady. She was kind and smiled and I adored her. We didn't talk in high school at all. Not just from being deaf. We were mute, they said, because we never spoke a word. Didn't know we’d do a podcast, did ya?
We'd been back from Europe, and in the States again. And I'm glad because we got some help, but maybe we should have kept moving. Maybe that's why we ran away again later. But she was kind and we went for choir like we're supposed to, even though I didn't sing. But she said since we could sign, maybe we could just sign to the songs. So she put us on the stage in front of everybody, and that's what we did. I think she thought it was like Sister Act. The movie had come out that year. That she could get the quiet one to express something when they knew so much was going on inside.
There were a whole team of people from the church trying to help us at the school. We didn't have clothes and we didn't have food. And we had to work at the school to pay our bill. Because mother wouldn't pay it because she was mad at them for reporting us. So everyone was trying to help in different ways. You gotta watch out for those Whitaker's, the ritzy family in town, who tried so hard to be kind and generous, but lived a life and never understand with resources I couldn't imagine at the time. But just as human as the rest of us, which I could see, but no one talked about. That's when I learned everybody's got secrets. Not just me.
Whatever this choir teacher was trying to do, it worked. I didn't want it to work. I didn't mean for it to work, but it did. So I didn't start talking, but I started writing. Like notebooks, except the notebooks hadn't been born yet. And I just wrote on index cards, because it's what I could get from the school. Little bits of things, poems or church words. And I left them on her desk each morning. Like secret notes. Trying to say “thank you.” Trying to attach in a way that was safe. Not knowing it was weird and awkward, or that anything was wrong with it.
I don't mean I liked her inappropriate way. And I don't mean that she did anything wrong. It was all very lovely and kind, her trying so hard and me trying too. When I wouldn’t respond to anybody else, even the therapist they sent.
And what's funny about the whole thing is they tried to send me to the therapist, the same one that the college sent us to later. But because we were a minor, we couldn't go without the mother's consent, and she wouldn't sign it. And then when we were in foster care, we ran away. And in doing so avoided what would have helped us. But I didn't know that, did I?
But this teacher, I kept writing her notes and leaving them on her desk. I thought it was reaching out. I thought was making a friend. I thought she was someone safe. I didn't know they were all getting turned over to the police. But that piece wasn't the worst of it.
One day I went to visit her. I had permission. They let me go because my work was finished. I went to help with something, sorting books or something. They knew I felt safe there, so they let me go. Which was unusual, because the principal was very focused on getting me to conform, and getting me to stay, and trying to get me to participate. As if he could be a sergeant and forced me out of my fears, and force me to face all the hard things that I lived with already every day. But in a world where people were mean to me and my mother beat me, and yelled at me, and locked me out, or locked me in, and wouldn't feed me, or help me, or do any of these things about relationships or attachment or attunement, or any of this that we've learned about in the last year, this teacher was at least someone who saw me, and listened, and let me be. And that was a terrifying feeling but I was hungry for it. Not in any kind of inappropriate way and nothing bad happened with her, I don't mean anything like that.
But this day when I went to visit her she was talking about our flute lessons, because she was giving me flute lessons for free after school. And to me it was a miracle, a big deal because it's something I never could have gotten to do on my own. An example of 100 opportunities that a child doesn't get unless someone provides it for them. And she was doing that even though she wasn't being compensated. And that was something that was expression, it was something that was creative. It wasn't that I was any good at music when I couldn't hear well enough to do it right. It was that I could feel it in my bones. Like the cello. Is that I could say something without using any words. And it turned out had a lot to say. And so we had the flu lessons. And she was talking about him that day, something we'd been working on. But I was standing there next to the window. And she was sitting at her desk working on something. And she was talking about graduation. The girls, the girls who aren't afraid of anything, the girls who weren't afraid to talk to boys, and the girls who weren't afraid to sing, and the girls who always got to stand in front, they were graduating that year. And I was just a junior.
And so we are talking about a flute lessons and about something we were working on in graduation. And she turned and gave me this little card. And on the little card was the poem about the footprints and about Jesus helping you. And on the card was a little pin with footprints on it. And I thought it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me without asking something from me in return, without invading my body for it. And I was so happy, and I was so proud, and it was the shiniest thing I'd ever seen. It was my first piece of jewelry, and I was 17.
And I wore it every day. Every day I put on my little uniform dress. It was awful. I had to wear a white shirt with the sailor collar and a red plaid dress for the uniform for the school. But every day I put that on, my pin with the footprints, to remind me that she said God will not forget about me, to remind me that I was going somewhere that I was going to get out of there, and that I was close to escaping. I wore it every day that school year. I wore it all summer every day at home. And I wore it every day of my senior year. As proud as a peacock. As if I've been claimed by somebody with love. I don't mean a bad kind of love, I just mean a caring. I wore it like it meant something, as if I’d been seen and heard, as if I belonged someplace, as if I belonged to someone. I wore it every day, that pin on my collarbone. I wore it until the clasp wore out and it wouldn't stay on anymore. And when it wouldn't stay on anymore, I kept it under my pillow. Because it was the most sacred treasure I'd ever been given, being picked out like that, being chosen like that, being thought of like that, being remembered. I even thought about talking to her with my voice, but I didn't.
And then everything went down with my new stepdad. Because he moved in after three days, didn’t he? And I feared for my life because I knew what he was going to do to me. And that's when I left. For good. But I took my pin with me. Only took a bag with me. One paper bag is all I took with me. I didn't even have a backpack. I just had the one paper bag I stole from the kitchen. And I put my two uniforms in it. And I wore my one pair of shoes. And I had a Bible and three colored pencils. And two pair of socks, while I was wearing the third. I didn't have any makeup or fancy hair things like the other girls. I didn't have a different uniform for every day like they did. I had the one dress and the skirt. I didn't even have play clothes to pack. There was nothing. And I left with that. I just walked out one day when they were passed out. Because in the New Testament and Matthew, it said, if you're not willing to leave your family for God, then what kind of love is that. And I thought, “If God loves me at all, and if he knows so much, then he knows I'm going to die. If I stay here, and I've got to go.” And so we ran away.
We walked to the school, it was three miles away, and we just sat down until the sun came up. And then we had school like we always do with the bag under the desk. And I did my after school job like we always do. And then I use the locker rooms to take a shower and change into my other dress for the next day. And then I left school like I always do. Except instead of walking home I walked across to the church and I hid in the balcony and I slept there. And that's how I finished high school. Until they found me four months later, before school got out and they realized what was going on.
I thought I was going to be in trouble. I thought they were going to send me away or to jail or back home. But the judge said if I could get a job and have a place to live, I could be emancipated. And so one of the ladies at the church let me live with them and take care of her boys for a job and a place to live. And we did that until it was time to go to college.
And I still didn't have any friends my own age. Only those ladies that I didn't talk to. But I listened to everything they said, about me and about everybody else. And when it was time to go to college, they had a shower for me like they do when someone gets married or has a baby, except it was for going to college. So that we could have the things that we needed for living in the dorms. And they gave me things like clothes for classes, clothes for Saturdays, a pair of tennis shoes, a blanket that we sleep with in our hammock now, things like shampoo and towels, everything when needed. And I thought was going to die having to sit there and open everything. It was so embarrassing. Everyone having a party about what I needed. But they were very proud of themselves for being so good at helping. So I opened things and I smiled and I tried to be grateful, and I was. But it was also humiliating.
And don't mean I was too proud for it, because I knew I needed it. But there's always the waiting for the other shoe to drop when you get caught needing. And now I know what that's all about. Shame and misattunement, and attachment or not having any. And so not really belonging ever, even when they try to include you. Because even in the including, you’re marked as different. And they can't win either. Because if they only focus on what's the same, then they're rejecting what is different, aren't they? Ignoring it, pretending it's not there. So there's no way to normalize it and there's no way to win. And if you can keep quiet about it, then you hold your shame inside by yourself. And they can go on feeling good about how good they are at helping.
And I thought about this as we drove away to school, where that foster mom would tell the dean of the school, in the line in front of everybody, how I'd been abused, how I scream and cry in my sleep, and how she was sure I'd been molested. It was like taking a big can of spray paint and painting the big A right on my chest in front of all my new friends at my new school, while everybody else had actual parents dropping them off and helping them decorate rooms as if they actually had choices about it.
So it was a different kind of secret. because no one sits in your shame with you. Because they want to feel better about making you better.
And I realized it wasn't about me. It was about who they wanted to be, and them doing the right thing for the God that they knew, and who they wanted to be, and who they were. And that it wasn't about me at all. And that it meant nothing because of that. They had not known me or seen me. They had only done a good deed. And they had been kind and generous, but no one talked to me. But I couldn't say so, could I? Because they had been kind and generous. And so it was the same thing. Having power over me, telling me what's good for me, telling me what I need. “You need to go to this school. You have to have this blanket on your bed. You have to wear these clothes. You have to wash your hair this way, even though it won't team your curls. And you've got to smile and be happy about it because God has done this for you. So be grateful. And say thank you. And stop complaining with your silence. And don't disrespect the good we've done for you.” And so what was helpful, had a dark side that no one helped me navigate and just felt like foster care for adults. Because they said I was one now and that that will be the last help I would get.
So when finding my own freedom, I found myself alone. While everyone else had families crying and hugging and saying goodbye. And everybody else had friends they were meeting or seeing again or rushing to make. There was none of that for me. And the world seemed like very big place. And I didn't know how to match my clothes. And like my own foster children who came later. I didn't know how to get in the bed with covers on it, and I got all tangled and just moved to the floor.
And on that dark night, alone in the world all by myself, not even knowing how to be human like everybody I was, I was playing with the pin of the footprints from the choir teacher back home. Because I thought, “she's the only person I'm going to miss, and maybe the only person who might miss me.” But when I went to sleep, my dreams were flames and fire. And that's where the footprints went, straight to the house as it burned. And I woke up in a cold sweat, and screaming, as alone as I've ever been. And with a horror that I'd never known before, that made my skin grow cold and my cheeks grow hot, I realized for the first time two years later that the teacher had never meant to give me the pin. I realized she had just been showing it to me. That she had gotten it for the girl that was graduating, and was just showing me what she had done, because she was proud of herself and showing me how to be a friend to someone else. But it had been the girl’s and not my pin. She was only showing it to me, she wasn't giving it to me.
But it took me two years to figure that out. And I was so humiliated. And I was so embarrassed. And the only thing that had been shiny in my life was like poison. And I squeezed it in my palm, angry at myself, until the pin went through my skin. And I never went back there again, to the school where the choir teacher was that I had adored, because I realized it wasn't real, only an illusion that had kept me alive during those dark days. But I had completely misunderstood why. And what I thought was care for me was only who they are, and not about me at all.
And so I started school, college, my adult years in clothes that weren’t mine, in a blanket whose generosity was noted from the pulpit in front of everyone, and shampoo I didn't know how to use. And for all of it, I had to be grateful because they were kind and generous, instead of thinking about how much it had hurt to be needing anything at all.
And I didn't mistake people's attention again for a long time. Because I just didn't accept it. I didn't want to be the ministry project. I didn't want to be the assignment. I didn't need to be pitied. It's not the same as being seen. And for all of the last year, I've dreamed about those footprints.
And months and months ago, something happened that I don't want to talk about here, right now, that ripped me open all the way back through time to those footprints. A rupture that cannot be repaired. And that's why I've grieved as I have, and why it took me so long, and why I needed every minute of it, because I'd been waiting so long to feel the depth of it. And there was despair to have fallen into it again, to have needed so much so desperately, to have done that to myself again. Because I tried taking the pin that wasn't mine. And I didn't mean to. And I didn't realize it at the time. And this time it took longer to figure out, but I did. And it changed everything.
Because then, in a podcast interview that you've not even heard yet, we figured out why, and what happened, and why it made me think of the footprints. Because, again, what I thought was about me, and helping me and good for me, wasn't about me at all. It wasn't my pin to take and I feel badly for having done so. I misunderstood everything, and it caused so many problems. And I got out of it as gracefully as I could.
But now I've got to go back to therapy, haven’t I? We're going to meet her in another hour, the new lady, this new girl who's going to be our therapist because there's literally no one left. She's two hours away, which is half as far away as the therapist was in Oklahoma. But everything's on telehealth now. So we'll see if we can even do that, or if I can talk to her at all.
Because right now I'm tired of trying. If it were not for my friend who checks in every day. Or Peter, who acted like we were a colleague in our own right, even a friend, and could see us and hear us without shaming us, and helped us connect to others. And the truth is he helped us connect to others as well, so that very slowly, roots are starting to grow. And listeners did not give up on us. And friends from far away reminded us they're still there. And the therapist sent us a book of words for when we don't have any. And the teachers at the school love our family because of who the children are, not just because they are good.
So maybe that's enough to connect the dots. Maybe it's enough to be grains in the sand to make my own footprint. But the sky smells like storm. And now that we've landed on the other side, I'm not sure I want to be here.
I'm not going to tell her about a system right away. Maybe not at all. I’m not going to write to her in poems or notebooks, or giveaway words for free. I don't know if we'll like her, or she'll stay, or we’ll get to keep her. I don't know if she'll see us or hear us or understand what it will be like.
But what it feels like right now is that I'm all alone in the world, except not this time. So why do I even need therapy? Except I know. And I can see the scar in my hand with the footprints push the pin through. So maybe I'll keep our appointment and I’ll show up, and I'll talk to this new therapist. But I won't be crucified again.
[Break]
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